We All Shiver in the Dark

 But we never really know pain, do we, amid these cages of steel and glass towers and cemented ground. Society is the padding. It is the blade which drags itself across our hearts, which makes us shudder, which forces blood to well up where there was none before. It is what we throw ourselves into, hoping that someone will see. Hoping that someone will save us.

And some of us wear scars, crossing across forearms, embroidering stomachs, decorating hips, tattooing thighs; marks of who we really are. Some of us wear nothing, but the scars are there, just as deep, invisible against the skin, scratched into the soul; peel back the flesh and see what's written beneath. And some of us don't know how to get it out; breath in, drown - that's how it goes - drowning in something which nobody can see; drowning but still alive. We keep breathing because that's the only thing we know how to do; the question still scratches at the back of our minds - should we? Wouldn't it be easier? Some do. Lost souls, all.

Can we ever truly realise our pain until we compare it to another's. We all feel a different hurt, a different pain, but we all suffer just the same. Don't tell us that we don't. We all fear, we all cry out, silent screams which echo in the empty spaces, we all shiver in the dark. Grapple at the light, try to touch the pristine, the clean; dirty it with our taint, the grime we can't remove, ingrained into the layers of ourselves.

Remember. Remember it always; whisper it to yourself when you walk past, when your eyes slide away, unable to bear the reality of another hurting soul. Remember: we suffer all the same.